Fallacies In Waiting For Superman

We often think of the United States as the world hegemon or world geo political leader. However, despite what many would proudly proclaim, unlike military power or economic power, we are not the leader in education. The system is admittedly not perfect, but we are far from failing. Across the country, tons of prosperous ,successful, learning institutions are busy at work preparing the next generation for the challenges that lie ahead. But, there are those who think the system is in shambles. A great example of such can be seen in none other than in Davis Guggenheim’s acclaimed investigative documentary, Waiting for Superman. The roughly two hour long documentary, released back in 2010, shows some of the problems with the US education system

The biggest sign of this, is Guggenheim’s crusade against the teacher’s unions, an establishment that he relentlessly attacks in the film as a major reason for educational malaise and poor teacher. However, Guggenheim only shows one minute isolated incident from the 1990’s in which one apathetic teacher sits idly by with a newspaper letting his students go unattended. And while admittedly, this is unacceptable for an educator to do, it doesn’t show the situation for all teachers in the country, nor does it even show the situation for all teachers in inner city schools. Throughout the film we never see a teacher or group of teacher voice their opinion on the problem in schooling, nor do we see them provide solutions. We only see opinions from those against public schooling and against the status quo of teaching. Guggenheim sets up a false reality in his film, a reality in which teachers are constantly on trial without any fair transparent recourse to defend or exchange ideas. The only teacher input shown in the film is one clip of a teacher union rejecting the idea of merit based pay. But that clip doesn’t give any insight from the perspective of an educator about teaching is really like, nor does it show any information from successful teachers that actually benefit education. All it does, is further Guggenheim’s crusade against teachers and public education. Guggenheim works to convey his point by suppressing the opposing side and not allowing for adequate rebuttal. Guggenheim focusses his lens on teaching instead of other issues in education like funding equity and federal management. And while there are certainly issues with the education system, Guggenheim misrepresents his