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Waiting For Superman Film Analysis

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Districting the New Segregation? Education has been a major influence on government policy and social standards concerning American youth. With hard work and education, one can better themselves and open up more opportunities for financial and social success. Waiting for Superman directed by Oscar winner, Davis Guggenheim, counters that the current education system is failing students by limiting their upward mobility, particularly among minority and low income groups. The documentary advocates for a radical change in the modern education system, modeled after charter school curriculums. Even though these successful schools produce great students many children, majority African American and Hispanic, are being left behind. In Maya Angelou’s …show more content…

Waiting on Superman follows the struggles of Anthony, Francisco, Bianca, Daisy, and Emily, where Emily is the only white student from a well funded suburban neighborhood (Guggenheim). The others come from communities where “failure factories” are common. Because of financial burdens, most of them cannot attend a private school so they rely on charter schools to get good educations (Guggenheim). Their cases exhibit the disproportionate rate at which good schools are available for their differing neighborhoods. The film only shows only two are accepted to their perspective charter schools; Emily who is white and Anthony a black student who got accepted on a waitlist. These cases show the unfairness within a system that is presumably impartial. The fact that charter schools accept students on a lottery, leave many disproportionately black and Latino students without the opportunity of being selected or drawn. White students usually do not need to leave their suburban public school so there are less people vying to attend a charter school in their area. There is a larger population of black and latino students seeking to leave “failure factories,” as many minority groups live in a neighborhood with inadequate schools. So the chances of a white student getting accepted into charter school is much greater than a black or Latino

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The essay by kozol shows the harsh reality about the uneven funds and attention given to the schools were many poor and minority students attend. During a visit to Fremont high school in 2003, Kozol claims that school that are in poverty stricken areas appear to worse than school that are in high class neighborhoods. Throughout the essay, kozol correlates between the south central Los Angeles high school and the wealthy high schools that are in the same district. When he learned the graduation requirement at Fremont and the classes the school had offer to accomplish this requirements, Kozol was amazed at how academically pointless the graduation requirements at Fremont and the classes to accomplish them were. Kazol compared this to AP classes

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“There’s no reason that the zip code you’re born into should determine your success or failure in school.” Whoever has said this quote, is completely correct. Children have a more innocent outlook on life. They do not yet know the difference between a good or bad education, and do not know they’ve been set up for failure. The documentary, Waiting For Superman, revolves around children who were born into an insufficient education zone with parents who can’t resolve the issue for various reasons.

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In Jonathan Kozol’s “Still Separate, Still Unequal: America’s Educational Apartheid” he explains that the difference between the low class schools and the urban class schools inequality by the lack of importance, the low funds, and the segregation. Kozol admits that no effort is put into the minority public schools that are isolated and deeply segregated. “At a middle school named for Dr. King in Boston, black and Hispanic children make up 98 percent of the enrollment”(Kozol 349). The schools that are named after Civil Rights leaders shows no proof of what these people were trying to succeed. Kozol comments on the extremely low funds in these minority schools.

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They also reported that most of forty-two of the white students who were admitted had grades lower than her. 168 Latino and Black student applied, all who had better grades than her, yet only five of them were accepted. (qtd in

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We have seen in the past four decades race-based affirmative action programs that have arisen and fitfully developed through judicial challenges. As in most case, the best of intentions do not always lead to positive outcomes. Nothing could be more apt in describing the perilous position we have bestowed upon millions of minority students who have been admitted to higher learning institutions under the auspices of diversity. As illustrated by the standardized test and GPA numbers in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, the students admitted to the medical school of UC-Davis under their affirmative action policy were extraordinarily less qualified when compared to the student body as a whole. This not only unfairly displaced white and Asian students who would have otherwise been admitted to those spot on merit but also places those underperforming students in an environment in which they are destined to fail.

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1444 Words | 6 Pages

Though Kozol’s article is not based solely on numbers and data as much as it is on his emotional experiences, he still includes the percentages of public school enrollment in specific areas. He introduces his article by listing all those numbers “to convey how deeply isolated children in the poorest and most segregated sections of [those] cities have become” even with those types of statistics listed (Kozol 348). In Chicago, with “87 percent of public school enrollment [being] black or Hispanic” students of these minorities are still isolated and segregated. (Kozol 348). White families send their children to distant schools over schools where the majority are of blacks and Hispanics, which leaves all the blacks and Hispanics crowded at one school with a poor schooling

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This goes to show that even in the school system, non-white people are inferior and their needs are not attended to.

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Analysis- in Sherman Alexie’s essay, Superman and Me (April 19, 1998) he explains the importance of reading and how it can change people lives. Alexie explains by using anaphora, pathos and diction. His purpose is to ensure that children should read no matter what race they are or where they come from. Alexie seems to have a wide spread of audience he write this essay to every cultural, race, gender in the world. The author tone is inspirational as indicated by using positive words like “I am trying to save live”

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748 Words | 3 Pages

The American public education system is in need of reform. One of the most prominent methods of reform being discussed is the implementation of more charter schools. Davis Guggenheim, director of the documentary “Waiting for Superman”, is a firm believer in this approach. In his documentary, Guggenheim presents young and promising students who go to unsuccessful public schools. These students are later shown either elated that they did get into a charter school or dismal that they didn’t.

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Another thing that places students of color at a disadvantage in college admissions is the persisting cultural bias in high-stakes testing. “High-stakes” tests are those that are tied to major consequences, such as admission to college, or even high school graduation. Fair education reform advocates have long been citing an extensive record of standardized testing concerns, many of which relate to racial bias and discrimination. As researcher and author Harold Berlak explains in the journal Rethinking Education: Standardized testing perpetuates institutionalized racism and contributes to the achievement gap between whites and minorities. For instance, the deeply embedded stereotype that African Americans perform poorly on standardized tests

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In April 2012, Pixar declared its aim to make a movie focused on the Mexican occasion Día de los Muertos, which will be coordinated by Lee Unkrich. In 2015, the film 's title was declared as Coco, and an arranged discharge on November 22, 2017, was reported. The Incredibles 2 was declared in March 2014, to be coordinated by Brad Bird, with a discharge date set for June 15, 2018.

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Based on data from the Civil Rights Data Collection in 2012, the United States Department of Education states that “black students are suspended and expelled at a rate three times greater than white students” (U.S. Department of Education). This is a problem because if a student has been suspended once, they are far less likely to do well in school and are actually much more likely to drop out, thus contributing further to the issue I discussed in the paragraph above. Schools need to treat all of their students fairly in order to give them the best chance at success in higher education. All of these factors truly go hand in hand to serve as obstacles in the way of minority students’

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1087 Words | 5 Pages

Asian students perform as well as white students in reading and better than white students in math. Reformers ignore these gains and castigate the public schools for the persistence of the gap. Closing the racial achievement gap has been a major goal of education policy makers for at least the past decade. There has been some progress, but it has been slow and uneven. It isn’t surprising that it’s hard to narrow or close the gap if all groups are improving.

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733 Words | 3 Pages

However, with diversity comes inequalities that people of color face throughout their lives. A particular issue in the United States, specifically in education, is unequal opportunities and treatment in regard to race. Research shows that students from single-parent black families had a high chance of dropping out and participating in illicit behavior (Hallinan 54). While the issue of race is a complicated issue to breach for

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For some reason all the teachers at that school were Caucasian. The teachers had mediocre expectations and hardly pushed the students for success. This is very different from Palm Springs High School where the teachers help to push students to

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