Waiting for \ by Karl Weber

Waiting for \ Reviews

• 
  Jimmy

  A collection of essays by different people with the central theme that teachers and teachers' unions are killing education. So let me get this straight, suppose we don't allow teachers to form unions and we get rid of the "bad" teachers. Schools are going to hire lots of "good" teachers and pay them lots of money so that many more "good" teachers will want to join up? Good luck with that one. Schools in my experiences have always hired the youngest and cheapest teachers. The young ones are also easier to get rid of. They are more willing to move on to another career.
  
  For me the best essay was by Randi Weingarten, head of the American Federation of Teachers. He offered the best strategies for success: "1. Good teachers supported by good leaders." I've seen far more "bad" administrators than teachers in my teaching career. "2. Good curriculum." My greatest success and claim to fame was when I was allowed to be innovative in the classroom with a high school philosophy class. "3. An environment that eliminates barriers to student success." Students need help with nutrition, counseling, and a host of other programs. That means someone needs to convince Republicans that poor people are worth investing in. "4. Shared responsibility and mutual accountability." That means the whole school shares in successes and failures. They have to work together to solve the problems. "5. Collaboration, not competition or combativeness." That means everyone joins in to help each other in the classroom. Somehow, I can't picture Michelle Rhee doing that.
  
  Some of the things I have learned in teaching: 1. I can only change myself. So if my class wasn't going well, only I could save it. I changed things around to make it better rather than fall back on complaining about students. 2. Treat each student as if they were my own son or daughter. What would I want for them. 3. Respect student opinions. Let them speak. I came up with creative ways to get their opinions across. 4. Have an active classroom with students going to the board a lot. 5. No subject is off limits. They have a right to challenge the religious and cultural establishment. They can form their own conclusions.
• 
  Cherie

  Disappointment given the hype of the movie (which I plan to see). It offers a limited perspective and it seems as if it exists solely to endorse charter schools rather than examine solutions for public school systems. The conclusions of some of the experts are not earth-shattering revelations. Bad teachers are bad because they lower student performance. Good teachers are great. Statistics are cited, but some of the studies seem flawed, though you wouldn't know based on the content of the articles. Data-based problem solving is a mantra for school reform, but some of the statistics are taken out of context to support dubious policy changes. For example, statistics show class size does not impact student performance. As a result of the research study that determined this, schools are encouraged to spend less money on offering smaller classes and apply the savings elsewhere. But there are other larger questions that those statistics cannot answer. How does smaller class size impact student-to-student relations, classroom management, the amount of time teacher spends grading each student, teacher job satisfaction (after all if we want the best teachers, their feelings of effectiveness in the classroom might be considered) Using performance scores as the chief criteria for evaluating students, teachers and schools seems limited at best. The tests that states administer to determine the student performance vary greatly in content and rigor and are only one measurement of student learning. I am not suggested that tests not be administered, but the assessment tools themselves do not always reflect what the students have learned. There is a lot of research on the effectiveness of the assessments, but none is referenced in this book. There are a lot of innovative public (non-charter) schools that engage learners and set high standards of achievement. The hard work of the students, teachers and administrators of those schools is largely ignored in the treatment provided by the book (and I assume the movie).
  
  I could go on about the many missing pieces and false logic presented in this book. I would, however, recommend that people read it. It raises a provocative point. If reading the book encourages people to participate in the debate and solutions that is a good thing. The teacher bashing is frustrating. As a parent and former teacher (17 years in the classroom) I know the value of wonderful teachers and the damage that bad teachers can do. The problem is that the book seems to see good/bad teachers in shade of black/white. Yes there are clear lines between the two, but often teachers slide up and down the spectrum. Thank goodness for the schools that use mentors, team meetings, and provide support to improve instruction. Isolation is neither good for the great teachers (who have so much to share) or the struggling teachers (who need support as well accountability). Team meetings enable the teachers to see student performance through the lens of different subject areas. Teachers can collaborate to identify what works and does not work with a given student or group. Such meetings will shed light also on which teachers are not meeting expectations. Many schools have regularly scheduled meetings. Unfortunately high school teachers tend to be more isolated than other grade level teachers. As a result, they may miss out on such collaborative opportunities. No doubt the charter schools that the book heralds as the be all and end all for student success have built such structures in to support their students and teachers. If a charter school is smaller than the competing public school, it also stands to reason that the teams in place can get to know each student better.
  
  Offering more charter schools is just one of many solutions that should be applied, but it is clear that there are not enough to meet the number of students demanding a better education. While I agree the choice is good for students and parents, it still leaves the majority behind and diverts funds from one school to another. What about those students left behind?
  
  There are many things that one can take away from reading this book; I just wish that they had put more in.
• 
  Virginia

  Don't bother reading this. It's not so much that it's a bad book; it's just that it's nothing I didn't already know. The book talks about, basically, that money is not the solution to education; good teachers are the solution. It also talks about how kids that are from disadvantaged areas need a longer school day to catch up, but, as an educator friend of mine pointed out, the book didn't discuss how the teachers were paid, etc. for the extra time this required of them.
  
  I don't know any teachers who don't work hard and who don't want their students to learn, but at the same time, I don't think it's an altruistic field. Teachers need to be rewarded for their work, and I really have to ask of the schools in the book that are open Saturdays, etc., what's in it for the teachers? I've had to work Saturdays, and I don't get paid any extra for it, and it's no fun at all, and I'm not even dealing with 30 children.
  
  The book is presented as almost a series of editorials, and one states that in low-income communities, once you get the kids learning and showing results, then the parents get on board. That makes no sense to me. I don't understand, and never have understood, why low-income neighborhoods don't have a culture of learning. I don't understand why it's uncool. When I was in high school, my friends and I never said to each other, come hang out on the streets instead of doing your homework. That wouldn’t have even crossed our minds. Homework was something to be done. It wasn't always fun, and it wasn't always what we wanted to do, but we know, even in our "advantaged" neighborhood that not graduating from high school, and not going to college was not going to get us closer to a life in which we could do what we wanted.
  
  And maybe kids in low income neighborhoods don't even know what choices are out there, or what they could do if they had the opportunities. And I understand that parents in these situations might be more worried about feeding their kids than whether or not they know algebra, and that many times the parents also don't know what options are available to them.
  
  Also, nowhere in the book is an actual teacher included. Many of the writers had been teachers, and moved on to administration, or had other experiences with school systems, but perhaps asking an actual teacher what their struggles were might have provided a balanced perspective.
  
  The book also talks a lot about the need for good teachers, how to improve middle-of-the-road teachers, and how to remove poor teachers. Many writers in the book suggest that there are ways to make education more equal and comparable across the country, but I'm not so sure that's really possible. I think the country is so vast, with so many different cultural attitudes, that making education the same everywhere is not likely possible.
  
  I'm not trying to sound dismal about the state of education in the country, but I think that there's not just one problem and not just one solution. I think there's too much of a blame game going on, and maybe rather than spending so much time analyzing what's not working, it's time to just try something, anything, new and see if that helps. If it doesn't something else can always be tried, or we can just go back to the old way of doing things. I still plan on watching the movie, because I'm curious, but I think that if you want to change education, you're better off spending your time doing something than reading this book.
  
• 
  King

  This is basically a collection of essays from various people who, I am assuming, were in the film. I opted not to see the movie and choose to read this because I thought this would be more comprehensive and less maudlin. I do have to admit however, that I feel like I am missing things in the conversation, so I will probably end up watching the movie anyway. I am hoping its still in the theaters.
  
  The Organization For Economic Co-operation and Development recently came out with its ranking in Reading and Math for 15 year olds of their respective countries. Topping the list is China. Finland is number two if I remember correctly. Even Canada, a country Americans are fond of picking on ranks number 5, tied with Japan. Finland has consistently ranked high in education. It's interesting to note that this very country also ranks very low when it comes to the income gap between of it's people. Meanwhile, the US is somewhere in the 20's when it comes to reading, math and science. The lists by the way include about 25 to 30 countries only, so do the math.
  
  I found the piece by Eric Hanushek to be enlightening. Since the 1960's our student to teacher ratios have gone down considerably and we are spending more on the education of each student as well. Despite this, the US still gets an F in education. The American populace(myself included) have been deluded by their politicians in thinking that throwing money at the problem will solve it. This is obviously not the case. Although we are graduating more students, the vast majority of those students should not be graduating, because they lack the skills to move onto the next levels of life, i.e. college, the labor market. The faulty idea of more is better and quantity over quality has deeply permeated the American system, much to its detriment.
  
  I also enjoyed the essay of Eric Schwarz, cofounder and CEO of Citizen of Schools. There should be something said about the psychology of "play becomes work," that I saw in his tale. If your passionate about knowledge, and you want to help others actualize their potential you don't need to go out and get a teaching degree to do it. You don't need to be a teacher to teach. There are many ways of helping the system and it need not consume our lives. Michelle Rhee's piece shows that kids do want to learn, regardless of economic background. They just have to be put in the environment where this desire can blossom.
  
  I did wonder, amid all these proposed solutions in this book, why we do not simply adopt the education systems of other countries with stellar education performances. The ideas presented will inevitably have to go through the process of trial and error. Why not just use what works? Seems the simplest and logical answer to me.
  
  Coming from a family that did not value education, this book, it's contents are dear to me. When I think of all the time I have lost because I was not instilled with this desire for knowledge... To all those people who do not understand why they should be paying for the education of other people's kids, READ THIS BOOK.
• 
  Kathleen

  Waiting for Superman is yet another book written about our failing schools. Although this book was published in 2010, there has been no real change with the problems in our educational system. The United States spends the more money per capita for education than any other country in the world, yet outcomes continue to fail. The book evaluates poor inner city schools, although not discussed the same problems are also evident in the poor rural areas. One contributor said it is thought that poor neighborhoods produce bad schools..but he then turned the tables by stating or is it bad schools that causes poor neighborhoods. Waiting for Superman is compilation of opinions on all that is wrong with education as professed by "experts", administrators and teachers. The list of all "the problems" with education documented in the book are endless: ineffective teachers who cannot be fired, tenure easily obtained and used to prevent firing, unions protecting only teachers with no thought to the child, principals who do not change ineffective teaching methods, administrators who hire inexperienced teachers because of lower salary requirements, students' family situations, federal government regulations, state government regulations, district regulations, school boards... Everyone had different opinions without consensus. Charter Schools are the ANSWER for they are independent, do not have unions and do not have to follow all government regulations. Charter Schools are the PROBLEM since they drain monetary resources in the school district. Others say the answer is easy. What is needed is: more classroom time, higher expectations, better quality teacher and accountability. Yet another administrator explained the problem in this way. The current education system was developed for adults and protects the adults...when will it promote positive educational outcomes for children. Yet another expert says educational advocacy is the answer for each child. I got the impression that just about all contributors believe themselves to be "the superman"....What cannot be debated is that quality education is the solution to reduce the problems of the poor in all regions of the country.
• 
  Scott Rhee

  I'm having a hard time with this one. Maybe it's because I didn't see the movie yet. I plan to, although everything I have heard about the film is making me already not like it. Reading this book isn't helping either. Rumor has it that the film is very pro-charter schools and very anti-union. I happen to be kind of pro-teacher's union and my experience with charter schools isn't wonderful. Statistically, too, charter schools have demonstrated little to no difference in terms of improving education. Yes, a small percent do actually perform extremely well. But just as many are actually major failures, and the rest are no better or worse than regular public schools. The "Waiting for Superman" book is just a lot of feel-good essays that don't offer a whole hell of a lot in terms of substance. Yes, we know that public schools are a mess. So, anyone have any bright ideas? Because this book sure doesn't have any. Skip this book and read Diane Ravitch's brilliant "The Death and Life of the American School System". Ravitch isn't very specific, but she at least does attempt to provide some potential solutions.
• 
  CJ

  An empowering call to action.
• 
  Rebecca

  I haven't seen the documentary that this book is a companion to, so that may explain some of my opinions of the book. I don't think this book is meant to be read in isolation of the documentary, so keep that in mind if you're considering picking it up. From what I gather, the documentary focuses on five kids' stories as a way of giving the story a human element; the book is just a collection of short essays by various people on different educational reform topics.
  
  The most disappointing thing about this book is that all the contributors seemed to be saying the same thing over and over again -- reform is needed, some methods have worked and some haven't, quality teaching is crucial, and parents/communities have some influence too. Almost every article was some variation on these elements. A few of them read like marketing pitches for particular programs/charter schools, which made me doubt their objectivity.
  
  Another common theme that cropped up in almost every essay was how U.S. students are falling behind students of other nations in terms of math and reading scores. The frequency and urgency with which the authors reminded us of this in every essay seemed to imply that the main reason to reform the educational system is so that we can beat the Chinese. There's a lot of national pride and status anxiety bound up with that viewpoint. I found that to be a really narrow and unnecessarily competitive take on things. Why can't we just say that we want to reform education because we want our kids to be smarter and enjoy learning for its own sake? Education shouldn't be a space race; it's a worthy end unto itself.
  
  Also, although I have no doubt that American public schools are underperforming in many ways, I was skeptical of the cherry-picked statistics at the beginning of the book; it seemed more like emotionally-loaded scare tactics than actual research.
  
  This book is a good resource if you want a broad overview of educational reform efforts, and there's a helpful list of websites at the end, but if you want in-depth information, this is not the place to go.
• 
  Adam

  You may want to skip past that diatribe of how hard this guy worked on Algore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth"
  
  After you get by the first 50+ pages it's actually a good book.
  
  Feasable solutions for our shambled school system? I don't think so. Definitely some great ideas, at the very least you'll get yourself thinking through the problem and how Americans will eventually address it.
  
  Not that I mean to be the "community organizer" but I do agree with the point that a successful school system needs a support effort from the community, businesses, and most of all the parents. There has to be more to it than getting your kid to the school, and paying/voting property tax levies (main source of school fundig -- at least in Ohio). Parents need to take concern and focus on their child's education just as much as teachers' unions.
  
  The last couple chapters are thorough lists of charities, websites, and agencies. This makes it easy to donate time, money, or materials to some of the organizations that are at the front of this challenge.
• 
  Joy Kim

  basically in a nutshell it says:
  american education is falling behind the rest of world. oh no. why
  arent these darn minorities graduating?! i know. NCLB will get these
  kids to try harder. they need to speak english dangit. and fast. so
  let's give them the CAHSEE. another test to fail, and increase high
  school dropouts. education needs reform. wow. that's a new concept. so
  let's fire old teachers but let's still keep the quality somehow. if
  we just replace all the bad ones, our schools will be fine. why?
  because my numbers say so. because education is a business about a
  "the race to the top." and teacher unions support democrats. that's
  suspicious. teacher unions are the enemy. charter schools can be
  great. like all 3 of them in the whole nation. but dont worry. you can
  still make a difference. because teachers are superman. they are.
• 
  Kate

  My fault for reading this book ten years late but I'm saddened that things haven't improved. Overall there are some great tips in here to become involved but I agree with the theory that parents and community must demand better schools and not create more charters for privileged folks to remove their children to. Public school education should be qualitative and meet the highest standards for ALL CHILDREN.
• 
  Allison Roy

  Slowing down on the reading a tad, as my schedule switched at work and now I just sleep forever after I get home. That being said, FINALLY finished this.
  
  I tried to look for the documentary on the firestick but it wasn't popping up. A co-worker of mine said the doc mostly was just pushing for charter school and charter school that. At first I didn't agree with him until I read the rest of the book and was left with the same thought. I'm not hating on charter schools, I think they are great but it just seemed like public schools were just shit on. I didn't become a teacher because I don't think I would have made the right fit in a public education setting.
  
  I could give a fuck what kids test out at. As long as I could use their interests and connect the subjects they are learning (mostly science/bio obv) then I would feel great. That would not land or keep me a job in a traditional education setting, unfortunately. Essentially this book pointed fingers in all directions, admin, unions, teachers, the infrastructure, the government, the funding, children's home lives, etc etc. it's pretty much a combination of all those things leading to a child's success. It seems like the pendulum keeps swinging back and forth on who is to blame. This book did leave on a hopeful note and provided lots of resources to become involved. I'm hoping I can find the documentary soon! 📍📎📓
• 
  Steph

  I heard about this book a lot in my undergrad for becoming a teacher and at several of my teacher trainings. I don't agree with everything these people recommend/stated. A majority of these short essay authors are people that have never been in a teacher's shoes or educational field to know what it's liked. Some of their claims are false to my teaching experiences. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Eric Schwarz and Randi Weingarten because they had perspective from both sides. "Before getting to those, let me say that I understand that a film needs to have a compelling story line, replete with good guys and bad guys. But teachers and their unions are not the bad guys," said by Randi Weingarten. This is very true, but both the book and film make teachers and their unions the bad guys. No the education system isn't perfect, but it has come a long way. There have been many changes, some good and some bad. But it takes EVERYONE to make a change for the better.
  
  I also thought this book would provide more background or information on the movie. In some ways it did and in some ways it seemed to have nothing to do with the film.
• 
  Kyle Burnett

  Waiting for "Superman" does not have every answer to America's problem revolving around educational reform, but it does offer a lot of insight from educators and professionals that have witnessed amazing strides from schools and students that were sunk down in the mud with "unteachable" prejudices. This book, or rather participation guide to the documentary (which I have yet to see) offers a lot of essays and discussion about how we should go about fixing the problems we see in American schools. As a future educator, this book inspired me to be the best teacher I can and helped inform me what needs to be done in the classroom and how we can get through to those students labeled "unteachable." The main theme of all these essays and the first step to make sure all students have access to a great education is to make sure that schools have great teachers and that administrators are not letting weak and ineffective teachers keep their job.
• 
  Ana Mardoll

  Waiting for "Superman" / 978-1-586-48928-1
  
  I haven't yet seen the documentary that this book is a companion text to; although it was recommended highly to me, I missed it in theaters and it hasn't come available to rent yet. Still, I was curious enough about the documentary and knew just enough to be dangerous about the subject material, so I bought this companion text and plowed right in.
  
  Results are...mixed. This book is basically a compilation of essays from different people on the subject of American public school reform. Some of the authors have more expertise than others; wishing no disrespect, some of the essay authors seem to have experience limited only to specific charities or boutique schools, with very little scientific data to back up some of their opinions. In between the essays, each section contains a little "introduction" page for each of the children that were featured in the documentary, but these 2-page sections are largely unfulfilling since they just outline the bare bones of the child's tale and don't tell whether they got into their desired school or not (you have to rent the movie for that, apparently).
  
  So we're left with the essays themselves, which are a mixed bag. In terms of factoids about the failing school system (particularly in comparison to other countries), this book is a rich resource - there's a lot of numbers on these pages that will shock you. However, when it comes to actually analyzing the source of these numbers, and how to fix them, the book falls a little flat. It's probably telling that the essay included here that I thought was the most powerful and best researched was the one that criticizes the documentary (and by extension the book) for (a) relying too much on largely out-of-date anecdotes about "bad" teachers and union problems and (b) (possibly inadvertently) pushing the notion that a few boutique schools will solve the problem.
  
  It's this essay that points out for all the many pages spent here criticizing unions, there's not any actual strong data presented against unions - a pretty frustrating omission in a documentary! And focusing on the "bad" teachers ignores the more important (and less "sexy") issue that "bad" teachers often can become "good" teachers with the appropriate training and feedback; when the *only* feedback teachers get every year is whether or not they dress professionally and arrive on-time, they're not likely to self-identify their needed areas for improvement. Focusing on a cooperative method of evaluation and training seems, to me, to be more important than "fire all bad teachers!" which seems to ignore the problem of where their replacements are going to come from.
  
  Moving on, other oddities in the various essays on display here include... An author who thinks it's admirable for a charter school principle to randomly threaten parents with "immigration authorities" if their kids miss a day of class. An author who argues against smaller classroom sizes because ze really doesn't seem to understand how scientific data is collected (to wit, halving a class size and handing off half to a new teacher, and then measuring the combined literary/math scores of both classes at the end of the year doesn't control for the quality of the new teacher; a meaningfully controlled study would measure 1 teacher with X students and compare that against the SAME teacher with X/2 students). An author who argues that principals need to be replaced with "CEO" figures because in a corporation, when something goes wrong, everyone knows the CEO is responsible - an assertion that makes me doubt the author has ever WORKED at a large corporation. An author who wants to reform the school system to resemble the American HEALTH CARE system because - and I swear this is true - it's just so gosh-darn *efficient*. I don't really know what to say to that.
  
  Moving on, there's also a very nice article that says, basically, that it doesn't *matter* if most charter schools do worse than the public schools they are meant to replace because that's the POINT of charter schools - to experiment with new things, keep what works, and close down the charter schools that don't. From a scientific standpoint, this isn't a terribly bad plan, but I can't help but feel sorry for the children that got lost in the system as part of the scientific experiment - at the very least, surely these numbers (and the implied risk!) should be made transparently clear to the parents as part of the enrollment process for new charter schools?
  
  I feel like I've been very harsh in my review thus far, and I want to stress that this is a VERY interesting book, with lots of fascinating viewpoints. I started the book with a healthy understanding of the school system problem, and I feel like I came away with broadened horizons as the various authors here discussed different possibilities and solutions for a hugely difficult problem. And, as I say, there were a couple of articles that I thought were incredibly spot-on, and I respect that these articles were included even as they made solid criticisms of the documentary. I do recommend this book if you're a fan of the documentary or if you're interested in the subject matter, but I *do* think that people should read these opinion essays for what they predominantly are: opinions.
  
  ~ Ana Mardoll
• 
  Liz Nutt

  I liked it, it was very inspiring. I think it left a lot to be desired in terms of addressing the unique challenges of students of color, which is why I only gave it 3 stars. It's a good slice of the education debate, but far from extensive.
• 
  Lauren

  i had to read this in middle school.....twas a bit confusing but i liked it.somewhat.
• 
  Kailee’s Book Nook

  DNF
• 
  Ashlee

  UGH what a frustrating book to read. Ok so I was not as strung out as I thought I would be. I saw all the uber liberal contributors and thought there was no way I would be able to get through this. Emotion without common sense attached to it makes me crazy so I was pleasantly surpised and appreciative of the acknowledgement that just tugging at heart strings was not going to be enough. I agreed with a good bit of it and then some of it made me want to throw the book across the room. At the end none of it really mattered because the real question is, "What do we do about it?" Even Gugenheim admits he is still driving past public schools to take his children to private schools. The main theme that I agreed with is that the best way to turn around our public schools is to get rid of the bad teachers. There are so many wonderful teachers out there and they and they alone should be who are teaching our children. We all knew who the good teachers were when we were in school and we all know who we want to be our children's teachers at their schools. If there is a teacher nobody wants and that every child is not receiving the best education they can from that person, they should be GONE. We need to appreciate the value of great teaching more in America. "Teaching should be a privilege, an honor undertaken with the highest ambition in mind to groom, educate, and inspire the next generation." "If we could simply eliminate the bottom 5-10 percent of teachers (we are talking 2 or 3 teachers in a school of 30) and replace them with even just average teachers we could dramatically change student outcomes" The needs of the children should trump the job security of the small# of teachers who should NOT be in the classroom.
  SO that is my rant on the teachers but, where I sit the real problem is the whole system is broken and even the most exceptional teachers can't teach to the best of their ability with what is being mandated. Everyone says they do not "teach to test" but, if teacher performance and school performance evaluations are based on test scores then what do you think is being repeated and memorized in classrooms? WHAT IS ON THE TEST and the "BEST" schools are doing that and ONLY that. Teaching to test does NOT create a strong curriculum or a strong student and it certainly can not be modified to reach different students with different strengths and interests. The round peg that fits in the round hole is easy, what happens to all the squares? "The goal should not be to set the bar so low that everyone can "achieve" it should be to have great teachers in place so that with the bar set high all students can achieve"
  "The irony is that we encourage creativity in our kids here in the United States and yet we do not encourage creativity in how we run our schools."
  I certainly do not know what the answer is but, I hope someone comes up with it soon. Meanwhile I will continue to encourage my children to be the best they can be in all that they do. We are lucky enought to attend a great school with great teachers but, your education is only as good as your worst teacher and if your education is cookie cutter then how do you find your passion? "One of the many tragic consequences of failing public schools is that cultural programs and the arts get eliminated or drastically cut back in an effort to save money. Many children can be reached through the arts where other venues of education simply do not work. The arts bring cheer, visual stimulation, and EXCITEMENT by their very nature - all key qualities that failing schools lack."
  I could go on and on. I have many sticky notes with quotes from the book and thoughts that the book provoked. I hope it really does get people talking and that the government can step up and start fixing what has gone wrong. I am a minimalist when it comes to government involvement in anything but, this is a mess they helped to create and they now need to help fix it. I also believe that education should be a fundamental right to ALL children regardless of their circumstances. The school and its teachers have no control over what happens when a child leaves their halls, the envrironment that they go home to can not be created to suit the needs of the student no matter how much we would like for it to BUT for the 7-9 hours they are in a government school they should be getting inspired, excited, and educated in such a way that they can change their circumstance on their own ambition.
  
  
• 
  Sandy

  The need to reform public education so that graduates are capable of becoming a productive workforce--whether they will be working at McDonald's or running for the presidency or anywhere in between--has been around for as long as public education itself.
  
  Of course. Behind this incredible enterprise--collectively sharing in the cost and responsibility of preparing our children to become dynamic players in a dynamic world--must be visionary people who see the big picture for what it is and design the change necessary to make education effective. The quality of life in our nation depends on the quality of our education; what goes on in school reflects what goes on in our world and is an image of our future as a nation.
  
  Waiting for Superman, How We Can Save America's Failing Public Schools (Karl Weber, ed.) is a collection of essays proposing ways to reform public education. At the heart of each essay is the idea that our schools need caring, committed teachers. At the heart of this idea is the assumption that there aren't enough of these.
  
  I am a teacher, and I think it is right to blame teachers for much of what is wrong with public education. We are the front line, and we choose to be there. Nobody in the United States of America is pressed into service as a school teacher; we choose the profession. If we choose it for the hours and the vacations and the benefits (including unions that protect our incompetence when someone gets around to noticing it), then we are traitors and should be treated as such. We who choose to be mediocre because we can get away with it are trading our nation's future for what we see as easy money.
  
  
  But there's more to the picture.
  
  As education bureacracies grow large and some members of it grow fat and happy by administering that bureacracy (Think of the manufacturers of standardized tests and all the bureacracy that hangs off of those, for starters.), being dynamic becomes more and more difficult. Change comes slowly if at all. Recalcitrant education professionals who don't much care for change learn this and learn to wait. Before you know it, the fundamental American right called the pursuit of happiness that predicates the right to a public education is merely a concept scrawled in an inky hand nobody can make out any more because nobody reads or writes cursive writing.
  
  Those of us who care about what we are doing deserve the support of clear curriculum, strong administrators, and committed colleagues. Teachers who care about kids are willing to learn and adapt and grow. We live for it.
  
  I think a method of teacher evaluation that involves a teacher's demonstrating reflection on his or her teaching practices and a plan that responds to those observations--day in and day out--would go a long way to burning the dead wood without taking down the wilderness that public education has become. It wouldn't be a big deal to a teacher who cares.
  
  At the beginning of the school year, I tell my students that I will take their work home, and I will call their families if need be to keep us on an even keel. I will do that even as my daughter is sitting in the same room without my attention as her mom. I will do that because my daughter knows as well as I do that her future is linked to theirs, and that if I love her I have to do right by these kids because they will shape each other's world. "My daughter is my world, so if I put you ahead of her, what does that tell you about how I feel about you?" I'm saying "I love you" my way. Then I tell them about friends and family who have served in the armed forces to help maintain a world in which so much can be invested in their learning. They're kids; I don't trust them to intuit the big picture; instead, I draw it for them.
  
  I think if you can catch a kid by the heart, you've got all you need.
• 
  Katie

  This is a decent book to get an overview of education problems in this country. There were some eye-opening moments, but most of it, I've heard before. It's very truly a "companion" book to the film, a short introduction to a subject of study, but actually ended up frustrating me somewhat. It says that the idea of the book/film is to not show how impossible everything is, but rather that there ARE people making strides in fixing problems. I don't really feel that they accomplished their goal; I finished reading it just as frustrated, if not more so, than I was before. Some new info I wasn't aware of, I'll discuss below.
  
  One of the things I didn't realize is how little class-size has to do with student performance, and basically all of the chapters (written by different leaders in education) boil down our system's problems to teacher performance. It was good that they included a chapter by Randi Weingarten; I had heard that the film of "Waiting for 'Superman'" came down pretty harsh on unions, and appreciated an alternative viewpoint. I'm still, dare I say it, on the fence about teachers' unions, but understand that many of them are trying to work with the school system to create something that works for everyone. As I said, many of the chapters focus on teacher performance and how that's the one thing that makes a huge difference in education, but as Weingarten said, it is impossible for good teachers to do their job without good leadership. (Although I do disagree with the whole, "if the school does well, EVERYONE gets a raise!" Yeah, I'd love to stay til 7 every night and have the teacher that leaves at 3:30 get a raise too when my class brings up the average.) In terms of how well each section was written, I felt Weingarten's was the most general, as though she came mainly to defend teachers' unions, and her actual ways to bring about change were obvious and generic.
  
  I also was enlightened by the discussion surrounding charter schools. Many of the essays were completely and totally gung-ho for them, and I kept thinking about the recent study saying that most charter schools are performing at or worse than the level of public schools. However, Geoffrey Canada's section brought clear why they are still important and should be a part of the discussion: Charter schools are allowed to experiment, a luxury not afforded to schools in the public system. Again, this brought about another level of understanding to me; at the same time, I cite Weingarten's fact that Canada's school, Harlem Children's Zone, has a budget of $36 million/year, and operates more as a community center as opposed to simply a school. It was moments like this, when I first thought we were getting somewhere, that it seemed like everything went right back around in a circle, and here we are, stuck again.
  
  So, here's how I read it: Good teachers, led by good leaders. So, we know what works (which should be obvious, as that's the mark of any successful company/system). Charter schools are leading the way for innovative system and curriculum changes. So what the hell is taking so long? Michelle Rhee seemed to be the only contributor who not only works in the public system, but has in-depth experience making necessary changes quickly and efficiently. She admits that, yes, she has been criticized by doing too much, too soon, but there is no time to waste when it comes to our kids. Everyone's contributions were interesting and a nice introduction to educational policy, but Rhee's book is the one I can't wait to read next.
• 
  Chunyang Ding

  I never seemed to have the time or patience to sit down and watch the documentary, but I had heard so much about this that I couldn't let the opportunity slide by. So in true style, I think I just sat down and devoured this book in roughly 2 or so hours.
  
  As someone who advocates for education quite strongly, I very much appreciated both the premise of the documentary as well as the essays in this Media Guide/Book. Each of the discussions, coming from very varied perspectives, was remarkably insightful into particulars of education. Upon my initial reflections, I was slightly dismayed by how much the authors of these essays still focused on test scores to measure the students, often comparing a great teacher to one who was able to raise the average scores by 20%. Can't they see that that is not the true purpose of education?
  
  But even though one of my primary goals is to move beyond the glut of standardized tests, the book does make sense with what it has. Getting rid of testing is a radical and impractical move. It doesn't make sense for students who need a benchmark to work towards. It doesn't make sense for educators who need a way to measure progress. While measuring by grades along will not do in the future, for the present I must concede that it is an effective way to learn how to teach.
  
  One of my favorite pieces in this book was by Michelle Rhee, the chancellor of the DC Public Schools, who shared her stories of how strong and effective teachers were able to make a real difference in the lives of students. That kind of personal learning not only engaged students, but also made their scores rise. My hypothesis is that these teachers did not "teach to the test", but instead, the test scores were a natural effect of more students willing to learn. They grew to love the learning and see the test as something that they wanted to do well on, instead of a headache and a roadblock in their path.
  
  Alternatively, the story of Jaime Escalante, written by Jay Matthews, was also extremely interesting. I had not previously anticipated that hatred of tests could actually be beneficial to learning! People like me tend to tout that, no, learning should be for the sake of learning, that perhaps colleges are not worth as much as we think they are, or that in this world of free information, sometimes schools can be a sham. But this is all in our idealized world. In reality, we have to work with what we have. We need to understand the tests and work around them! We need to realize that, for students who may have the same opportunity as ourselves, testing is pretty crucial to them. For first generation college-hopefuls, that degree can be the difference between a life filled with opportunities or one that is more set in concrete. We may hate the current system, but for those who are struggling within it, we need a way to save them right now.
  
  Immediacy is a big problem, and acting on what we say to do is just as important as having those grandiose ideas. What Waiting for Superman really taught me is that every single person, every volunteer can change something for the better. Working together, we can put an end to that wait, because really, each of us have the potential to become super.
  
  
  Link to Wordpress
• 
  Laurie

  "I hope people will try to take what I'm offering and use it to help illuminate ways to improve our schools for the benefit of kids, rather than to bash teachers or unions or anyone else." - Davis Guggenheim on his documentary Waiting for Superman.
  
  I haven't yet seen the documentary, but I wanted to read this book to see what it was all about. I appreciate what Guggenheim said in the previous quote, which is from the book, but too often it seems that people focus only on the teachers and unions and not on anything else. Even some of the essays in this book. Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, writes one of the book's many essays, and thank goodness she does. "Unfortunately Waiting for Superman focuses on two kinds of outliers: bad teachers and difficult-to-replicate schools, the implication being that if you get rid of a few bad teachers and create a few boutique schools, you can solve all the problems of education. You can't." Exactly. As Weingarten writes, "Teachers struggle mightily to help their students make progress, often hindered by systems that lack the collective will and in some cases the collective capacity to do the right thing for all of our kids." Weingarten details five things needed for student success: good teachers supported by good leaders, good curriculum, an environment that eliminates barriers to student success, shared responsibility and mutual accountability, and collaboration, not competition or combativeness.
  
  Another essay that I liked was from Eric Schwarz, cofounder and CEO of Citizen Schools. He makes the case that ordinary citizens in the school's community need to step up and play a role in education to offer students "the three new Rs: more relationships, more relevant learning projcts, and more time for rigorous practice and skill building." Whether coaching youth sports, partnering with a school to give a special presentation in a classroom (such as a scientist doing experiments in a middle school classroom one day), starting an apprenticeship program to immerse kids in a potential career path, or volunteering with organizations such as Big Brothers, Big Sisters, the involvement of the community is important for education.
  
  Other suggestions in the book are to make teaching "cool" - getting people to want to be teachers, making it one of the most important jobs that someone can have and then paying these people what they deserve. One essayist writes that the starting salary for teachers should be a full-time salary ($50,000-$60,000) not a part-time salary (and that teachers should work full-time, but I'm assuming this guy doesn't realize that teachers already DO work full-time. I'm married to a teacher and he's working - lesson plans, grading - in the evening and on the weekends, too.)
  
  The topic of education gets people riled up. Everyone thinks there is one magic answer, such as charter schools. But for every good charter school, there are bad ones. Just like public schools. Charter schools aren't the magic bullet. Combining all the different ideas in this book can help education in America. When people come together to work in the best interest of the kids instead of fight about it and play the blame game is when we can make education better.
• 
  Susan

  In Pennsylvania, 68% of state prison inmates are high school dropouts. The state spends $33,000 a year on each prisoner, and the total cost of the average prison term is $132,000. By contrast, the average private school costs $8,300 per student per year. So for the same amount, Pennsylvania could have sent a prison inmate to a private school from kindergarten through twelfth grade--and still had more than $24,000 left for college.
  
  Fifty years ago, only 20% of high school graduates expected to go to college. Most of those who did would become doctors, lawyers, engineers, clergymen, and top corporate executives. The next 20% were expected to go straight into skilled jobs as accountants, managers, technicians, or bureaucrats, while the bottom 60% would become workers on farms and in factories, in an economy where those occupations generally paid wages sufficient to support a family. Based on these numbers, a system of tracking or grouping by ability emerged that served American school systems reasonably well. Today most middle-class high schools still track their students in this manner, even though the economy now requires a much higher percentage of college graduates. The gap between what we need and what we are producing is large, and growing. In fact, by the year 2020, 123 million American jobs will by in high-skill/high-pay occupations, from computer programming to bioengineering, but only 50 million Americans will be qualified to fill them.
  
  The average college graduate earns 73% more than the average high school graduate in a lifetime. Based on this relationship, The Alliance for Excellent Education has estimated that the approximately 1.2 million students who should have graduated with the college class of 2008--but failed to do so--will cost the nation nearly $319 billion in lost income over the course of their lives.
  
  High school graduates on average live up to seven years longer than high school dropouts.
  
  Since 1971, education spending in the United States has more than doubled from $4,300 per student to more than $9,000 per student (adjusted for inflation). Yet in that same time period, reading and math scores have remained flat in the United States, even as they have risen in virtually every other developed country.
  
  As a profession, teachers enjoy some of the strongest protections of any group of workers. For example, in Illinois, 1 in 57 doctors loses his or her medical license, and 1 in 97 attorneys loses his or her law license, but only 1 teacher in 2,500 has ever lost his or her credentials.
  
  Recent research into teacher effectiveness demonstrates that the performance gap between the best teachers and the worst teachers is far greater than commonly supposed. On average, a teacher in the bottom quintile of effectiveness covers only 50% of the required curriculum in a school year, while a teacher in the top quintile covers 150%.
  
  To read: 1983 report A Nation at Risk
  
  
• 
  Jess

  Like others have pointed out, this was pretty lacking in sources. The first chapter is a long list of all the ways our schools suck, complete with statistics, but not a single citation.
  
  I went into this book expecting to hate it. The movie was lacking and I'm opposed to charter schools as a band aid solution. I think they do more harm than good. So I think with that mindset, the fact that I have it three stars is pretty good. I was mildly impressed that among the piles of pro-charter essays, they also included one from the president of a national teachers union. Unsurprisingly, that was the only essay I found myself nodding in agreement with.
  
  I read the book because it's good to see where the other side comes from, but if you're looking for statistics and data from the other side, you won't find it in this book.