Today 40+ MATCH staff, relatives, and friends came together at the Coolidge Corner Theater to watch "Waiting for 'Superman,'" a new documentary about the American Education System.
The movie follows five individual students and their families. Each one of the families finds themselves in a failing school district, and the only way out is by luck--to be drawn from a hat (literally) at a Charter School Drawing.
SPOILER ALERT:
In the end, only 1 of the 5 students make it into a charter school. You watch as the rest simply weep, knowing that in a way a little hope died that day. One way out was closed, without a nother obvious one opening.
First I'd like to share some statistics that the movie shared as well as some personal reflections of my own.
1) It cost us $33,000 a year to support a prisoner. It cost $8,300 a year for tuition to a private school. Recognizing that a lack of good education is part of the background of many prisoners, think about how much money could be saved and how much our society could prosper if we just put in more money earlier. If we tried to find a solution as opposed to just addressing the problem.
2) 1 in 57 doctors lose their liscense, 1 in 97 lawyers lose their ability to practice law, but only 1 in 2500 teachers loses their teaching credentials. Why are we not afraid to get rid of bad doctors and lawyers, but for some reason keep bad teachers?
The major premise behind the film was that Charter Schools work, they prove that urban and rural youth aren't destined for failure. That being college-bound isn't connected to being affluent. That school's like KIPP schools throughout the country are showing higher college acceptance and graduation rates than numerous other schools. But while the schools work, they are leaving thousands of kids behind.
In one of the particular cases, the mom went alone to the Charter School lottery drawing. She went alone because she didn't want her son to have to see the light of his future dim that day. She wanted time to collect her thoughts, to figure out how to make it in a school that was failing her son.
Another mother paid $500 a year to keep her child in parochial school. But then the payments became too much, and the charter school was the only other option besides failure...but it didn't work out.
How can we condemn our children? How can we sit back and realize that a bingo wheel is deciding who's going to get a better chance at success? Who's going to be put in an institution that works for them as opposed to working for special interest?
Unfortunately we don't have time to wait for Superman. While the unemployment rate is staggering, high-tech industries can't find enough skilled labor--and are having to look over seas. Superman's not coming. Which means the weight of the world fails on our shoulders.
What I struggled most with this film was how it highlighted that I'm not necessarily where I should be to make a change. I'm sitting in a charter school that's already proven that it works. I'm sitting in a charter school working with the lucky ones. And there were thousands of other applicants who could be taking my spot right now, plugging and playing into this school and seeing similar gains to what I am accomplishing. To be part of the solution would be to go into the failing schools, to help an institution that doesn't know what success feels like, that can't contemplate celebrating standardized test scores. Right now we at MATCH are all part of someone else's solution, but we're not solving much right now.
I know that none of us are Superman, nor will any of us take down teacher unions all by ourselves-but sometimes you just got to put on the cape and take a leap and hope you find the ability to fly. This institution just isn't the cape we need to wear right now.
